Taylor(2003), “Pleasure: Aristotle’s Response to Plato”, Plato and Aristotles’s Ethics

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(본래 절 구분이 없는 글)

(0. Introduction) (240-243)
(1. Replenishment Model) (243-246)
(2. Problems of Replenishment Model) (246-248)
(3. Aristotle’s account of pleasure) (248-251)
(4. Problems of Aristotle’s account) (252-255)
(5. Interpretations of Aristotle’s account) (255-264)

 

Introduction

 

“Aristotle’s discussion of pleasure has two main functions. First, he has to rebut arguments which purport to establish that pleasure cannot contribute to the good life, either because pleasure is bad, or because it is not good. [...] Further, his own account of pleasure should provide further positive arguments in support of the thesis that pleasure is at least inseparable from the good life.”

 

“Both passages contain criticism of a certain view of the nature of pleasure, seen as foundational to many of the arguments hostile to pleasure. [...] This is the view of pleasure as a perceived process of replenishment of a natural lack, and thereby a return from a state of deficiency. [...] pleasure is always a process of coming to be, never a state of being.”

 

“The theory is familiar from well-known passages of Plato. [...] The paradigm cases are those of pleasures in the satisfaction of bodily-based appetites, especially those for food, drink, and sex.”

 

*즐거움에 대한 아리스토텔레스의 논의

  1) 즐거움이 좋은 삶에 기여하지 않는다는 논증에 대한 반박

  2) 즐거움이 좋은 삶과 분리불가능하다는 논증의 제공

  ⇒ 1), 2) 모두 즐거움이 자연적 결핍의 보충 과정이라는 관점에 대한 비판을 포함

 

*즐거움에 대한 플라톤의 논의

  - 즐거움이 자연적 결핍의 보충 과정이라는 관점에서 다양한 범례(paradigm cases)들을 제공

  - 주로 음식과 성행위와 같은 육체적 욕구(appetites)에 대한 만족으로서 즐거움을 논의

 

Replenishment Model

 

“Given one kind of extension, desire is seen [...] as a response of deficiency, and pleasure as bound up with the making good of that deficiency. [...] Given the other kind, desire is a response to deficiency in some cases and excess in others, and pleasure is a response to the restoration of equilibrium in both. A further extension is exhibited by the application to mental pleasures [...] so ignorance or lack of understanding can be seen as states of mental deprivation, and the making good of those lacks in learning as mental pleasure.”

 

“The model has a general feature which makes it particularly problematic for someone who, like Aristotle, seeks to assure the place of pleasure in the good life. [...] It seems at best an alleviation of the troubles of the human condition; consequently it is hard to see how pleasure thus conceived could have any role in the ideally good life, much less be a necessary feature of it.”

 

“If pleasure is essentially remedial, arising when a deficiency is remedied, would we not do better to avoid those deficiencies in the first place than to seek to remedy them? [...] the tendency of the model will be to favour asceticism.”

 

*즐거움에 대한 보충 모델(replenishment model) : “즐거움은 결핍에 대한 보충이다.”

 

*보충 모델의 확장

  - 욕망(desire) : “욕망은 결핍(내지는 과도)에 대한 반응이고, 즐거움은 결핍(내지는 과도)의 보충(내지는 균형 달성)에 대한 반응이다.”

  - 정신적 즐거움(mental pleasure) : “정신적 즐거움은 무지 또는 이해의 결핍에 대한 보충이다.”

 

*보충 모델의 귀결

  - 즐거움은 인간적 조건에서 발생하는 문제의 완화일 뿐 좋은 삶에 어떤 역할을 하는 것은 아님

  - 좋은 삶은 즐거움을 추구하기보다는 오히려 결핍과 즐거움이 발생하지 않도록 금욕하는 것임

 

Problems of Replenishment Model

 

“Many kinds of pleasures are not preceded by episodes of desire. So I can enjoy e.g. the smell of a rose, or a beautiful view, or memories of childhood holidays, without previously having desired to have, or felt, any lack of those experiences. The scent is wafted through the open window, the view is disclosed at the crest of the hill, the pleasant memories simply occur to me, all without any antecedent longings.”

 

“We do not give a complete account of sexual pleasure by describing it as the making good [...] of a lack of sexual activity. For the perception of the absence of sex as a lack presupposes that sex is seen as worthwhile, and it is seen as worthwhile at least partly insofar as it is seen enjoyable. [...] The deficiency/replenishment model presupposes a prior account of what it is that makes sex enjoyable.”

 

“For what is that supposed lack a lack of? Either it is just a lack of pleasure, in which case the ‘theory’ reduces to the tautology that pleasure is the making good of a lack of pleasure, or else it is a lack of whatever it is that makes e.g. smelling the rose pleasant (alternatively, a lack of whatever that pleasure consists in). But in that case the explanatory work is being done by that account, whatever it is, not by posited lack. Aristotle’s own response to the deficiency/replenishment model can be seen as making this point.”

 

*보충 모델의 문제

  1) 결핍이 없는 상태에서, 따라서 욕망이 없는 상태에서 발생하는 즐거움이 굉장히 많음

  2) 결핍은 즐거움을 주는 행위의 부재이며, 따라서 즐거움이 왜 즐거운지에 대한 설명을 상정해야 함

  ⇒ 보충 모델은 1)에 해당하는 즐거움에 대한 설명력이 없고, 2)에 대한 즐거움에 대해서도 동어반복적 설명을 제공하기 때문에 설명력이 없음

 

Aristotle’s Account of Pleasure

 

“On this account the factor common to all pleasures is the exercise of natural capacities in appropriate conditions. The basic idea is that pleasures are appropriate to the different species of animals; every species has capacities for activities which constitute its specific life, and when those capacities are exercised (i.e. when the corresponding activities are undertaken) in the appropriate conditions their exercise is pleasant to the individual member of the species.”

 

“The principal problem in the application of the deficiency/replenishment analysis to intellectual pleasures was that that analysis applied straightforwardly to the pleasure of acquiring knowledge or understanding, but not so straightforwardly to the pleasure of exercising those capacities. That problem now disappears, since both kinds of intellectual activities are characteristically human.”

 

*즐거움에 대한 아리스토텔레스적 설명 : “즐거움은 적절한 조건에서의 자연적 능력(기능)의 발휘이다.”

 

*아리스토텔레스적 설명의 장점

  : ⓐ지식과 이해의 습득의 즐거움과 ⓑ지식과 이해를 습득하는 능력의 발휘의 즐거움을 모두 설명할 수 있음 (보충 모델은 ⓐ만 설명 가능하고 ⓑ를 설명하기는 어려움)

 

“the great majority of bodily ‘pleasures’, viz. those which involve the replenishment of some deficiency, are not in fact pleasures at all; they are rather process of escape from distress [...] Plato appears to accept this argument as showing that genuine pleasure must be free of any element of distress [...] admits the pleasures of learning among genuine pleasures subject to the proviso that ‘they do not involve any actual hunger for learning, and that there is no distress from the start through hunger for knowledge.’”

 

“it does not follow that the process of transition from the state of deficiency to the state of repletion is not really pleasant. Aristotle’s analysis allows him to escape this error; the process of transition from deficiency to repletion is the process in which the nutritional capacity is appropriately exercised, and is therefore standardly pleasant.”

 

*즐거움에 대한 플라톤적 설명

  - 육체적 ‘즐거움’은 즐거움이라기보다는 차라리 괴로움으로부터의 도피

  - 진정한 즐거움은 괴로움이라는 요소를 포함하지 않아야 함

  - 정신적 즐거움(배움의 즐거움)은 괴로움이라는 요소를 포함하지 않기에 진정한 즐거움임

 

*즐거움에 대한 플라톤적 설명의 오류

  : 결핍의 상태가 불쾌함이고 결핍의 제거 상태가 즐거움도 불쾌함도 아니더라도, 결핍으로부터 보충의 상태로의 이행이 즐겁지 않다는 결론이 도출되지는 않음

  ⇒ 아리스토텔레스는 육체적 즐거움을 간단히 영양섭취 능력(nutritional capacity)가 적합하게 발휘된 것으로 보아 표준적인 즐거움에 해당한다고 이야기함으로써 이러한 오류에 빠지지 않음

 

“Since the best human life consist in the excellent exercise of specifically human, i.e. rational capacities, it follows immediately from the analysis that that life must be, not merely pleasant, but intrinsically pleasant, i.e. pleasant just in virtue of being the kind of life that it is.”

 

“At the same time the wide diversity of human capacities and activities, answering to a corresponding diversity of human interests, gives a ready explanation of the diversity of kinds of pleasure, and of the observation that what is pleasant to one person may be unpleasant or neutral to another. Capacities are developed to different degrees in different individuals.”

 

*최고의 인간적 삶 = 인간 특유의 기능을 탁월하게 발휘하는 삶 = 본질적으로 즐거울 수밖에 없는 삶

 

*다양한 인간들 간 천차만별인 즐거움 ← 다양한 인간들의 천차만별인 관심, 능력, 능력의 발달 정도

 

Problems of Aristotle’s Account

 

“Pleasure is or arises from the exercise of natural capacities in good or appropriate conditions, but it is problematic whether it is possible to identify appropriate conditions without including among them the condition that the activity is pleasant to the agent. If so, the analysis is viciously circular.”

 

“Aristotle counts pleasure in the exercise of the senses as a paradigm of human pleasure. Since for him sense-perception is the realization of a sensory capacity by its appropriate object, sensory pleasure requires that both the capacity and the object should be in good condition. [...] sensory apparatus should be functioning well, while [...] the object be such as to stimulate perfect exercise. [...] But that condition is manifestly insufficient to guarantee that the perception is pleasant.”

 

“Any account of pleasure must make room for notions of wanting, preference, interest, etc., but those notions do not offer the prospect of reduction, since pleasure itself figures in any account of them.”

 

*아리스토텔레스적 설명의 문제

  : “자연적 능력이 발휘되어 즐거움이 일어나는 ‘적절한 조건’이 무엇인가?”

  ⇒ 즐거움 자체를 조건으로 삼으면 악순환, 즐거움 자체를 조건으로 삼지 않으면 찾기 힘듦

 

*문제에 대한 다양한 해명 시도와 한계

  1) 애호 조건 : 즐거움을 발생시키는 것/행위여야 함

  2) 건강 조건 : 해당 종의 건강한 개체에게 즐거움을 발생시켜야 함

  3) 자극 조건 : 능력을 가장 잘 자극하는 것이어야 함

  4) 아름다움 조건 : 아름다운 것이어야 함

  5) 관심 조건 : 개별 행위자가 관심을 가지는 것이어야 함

  ⇒ 1), 2)는 악순환에 빠지고, 3)은 즐거움을 발생시키지 않을 수 있으며, 4)는 향/맛/촉각에는 적용하기 어렵고, 5)는 즐거움 발생의 다양성을 설명하나 여전히 악순환에 빠짐

 

Interpretations of Aristotle’s Account

 

“At EN Ⅱ53aⅠ2-Ⅰ5 Aristotle sums up [...] in these words: ‘Therefore it is not correct to say that pleasure is a perceived process of coming into being; rather one should say that it is the actualization of the natural state, and instead of “perceived” one should say “unimpeded”.’ [...] the absence of obstacles, both internal and external, to the exercise of the capacity in appropriate conditions. [...] I take Aristotle to be offering as an improvement on the replenishment account the account of pleasure as the unimpeded actualization of a natural capacity.“

 

“his account raises two interrelated questions. First, is it an account of what we enjoy, or take pleasure in, or is it an account of what enjoyment is? [...] Secondly, what unimpeded exercise is he talking about? [...] about the unimpeded exercise of the capacity to take in nourishment (the nutritive capacity) or of the unimpeded exercise of the capacity to be aware of taking in nourishment, a perceptual capacity”

 

“In advance of answers to these questions we have four possible interpretations of Aristotle’s account:

1. What we enjoy when we enjoy food is unimpededly taking in nourishment;

2. Enjoying food is unimpededly taking in nourishment;

3. What we enjoy when we enjoy food is unimpededly perceiving our taking in nourishment;

4. Enjoying food is unimpededly perceiving our taking in nourishment.”

 

“Aristotle argues that none of those marks of processes is true of pleasure, which is something whole and complete, like sight; the point is that pleasure, like sight, is complete as soon as it has occurred [...] no pleasure is a kinēsis [...] Throughout he presents the discussion as if there were a single question ‘What is pleasure?’, to which ‘Pleasure is (a) perceived genesis/kinēsis’ and ‘Pleasure is (an) unimpeded energeia’ are conflicting answers.

 

*즐거움에 대한 아리스토텔레스적 설명

  : “즐거움은 적절한(appropriate) 조건에서의 자연적 능력(기능)의 발휘이다.”

  ⇒ “즐거움은 자연적 능력(기능)의 방해받지 않는(unimpeded) 발휘이다.”

 

*아리스토텔레스적 설명에서 발생하는 의문

  1) 우리가 즐기는 것에 대해 설명하는 것인가, 즐거움에 대해 설명하는 것인가?

  2) 능력의 발휘에 대해 설명하는 것인가, 능력의 발휘를 지각하는 것에 대해 설명하는 것인가?

 

*아리스토텔레스적 설명의 해석 가능성 (음식 섭취의 사례)

  1) “음식을 섭취할 때 우리의 즐거움은 방해받지 않는 영양 섭취이다.”

  2) “음식을 즐기는 것은 방해받지 않는 영양 섭취이다.”

  3) “음식을 섭취할 때 우리의 즐거움은 방해받지 않는 영양 섭취를 지각하는 것이다.”

  4) ”음식을 즐기는 것은 방해받지 않는 영양 섭취를 지각하는 것이다.“

 

*아리스토텔레스적 설명의 해석에서 고려해야 할 점

  : “즐거움은 (부분적이고 불완전한) 과정일 수 없으며, 그 자체로 전체적이고 완전하다.”

  ← 보충 모델이 빠지는 함정을 피하기 위함

 

“walking and building simply are processes [...] Bostock apparently takes the fact that these simply are processes as sufficient to establish that it cannot be the case they are enjoyed qua exercises of their respective capacities.”

 

“His claim is that Aristotle thinks that there are just two kinds of specifically human pleasure, viz. pleasure in thought and pleasure in the exercise of the senses. Theses are energeiai. [...] Aristotle ties pleasure closely to life [...] human life consists primarily in perception and thought.”

 

“But he produces no evidence that Aristotle thinks that pleasure is ‘in the mind’ in a sense which is inconsistent with one’s literally enjoying the building. Of course pleasure is not in the body, as Aristotle points out (Ⅱ7b9-Ⅱ), but then neither is building in the body. Building is something which an embodied agent does, and sensory pleasure is also an attribute of an embodied agent. [...] we should say that the pleasure which is in the builder’s thoughts and sensations is the builder’s pleasure in the process of building itself.”

 

*David Bostock의 아리스토텔레스적 설명 해석

  : “즐거움은 사유와 감각 발휘뿐이다. 걷기나 짓기 같은 활동은 과정이기에 즐거움이 될 수 없다.”

  ⇒ 1), 2) 거부. 3)이나 4) 혹은 둘을 구별하지 않을 것. 음식 섭취의 경우, 3)에 가까울 것.

 

*Bostock 해석의 장점

  - 아리스토텔레스의 과정(kinēsis)과 발휘(energeia)의 구별을 정확하게 따르는 해석

  - 아리스토텔레스의 즐거움에 대한 이해와 즐거움 분류를 정확하게 따르는 해석

 

*Bostock 해석의 단점

  - 즐거움을 정신 속에 있는 것으로 간주하면서 실제로 인간의 즐거운 활동과 괴리가 발생

  - 즐거운 사람의 사유와 감각 발휘는 즐거운 활동과 별개로 정신 속에 있는 것이라기보다는 즐거운 활동의 과정 속에 있다고 보는 것이 상식적임

 

“such as the capacity to build, are exercised in acts which are kinēsis by those criteria, since every act of building proceeds by stages, is not complete till it is over etc. But every stage in the process of building is also an exercise of building capacity (i.e. an energeia), and it is under the latter description that it is enjoyed.”

 

“I suggest, then, that the virtuous agent is aware in thought of what the content of his or her good prohairesis is, and in perception that the description of the action fits the content of that prohairesis, and that those thoughts and perceptions are inseparable from the agent’s enjoyment of virtuous activity. But whether they are that enjoyment, or its object, or undeifferentiated between the two I am unable to determine.”

 

*필자의 아리스토텔레스적 설명 해석

  : “즐거움은 자연적 능력(기능)의 방해받지 않는(unimpeded) 발휘이다.”

  ⇒ 이것으로도 충분히 과정이 있는 즐거운 활동에서의 즐거움도 설명할 수 있음. 즐거운 활동의 각 과정에서 우리는 전체적이고 완전한 즐거움을 느끼고, 그 즐거움은 사유와 감각을 포함한 능력의 발휘임.

  ⇒ 덕스러운 행위자는 자신의 의도(prohairesis) 및 의도와 행위의 정합성을 지각하며, 그러한 지각은 덕스러운 활동의 즐거움과 분리불가능함

  ⇒ 필자는 이 해석이 3)인지 4)인지는 잘 모르지만, 적어도 아리스토텔레스가 니코마코스 윤리학 후반으로 갈수록 3)과 4)의 구별을 의식하려고 했었던 것으로 보인다고 말함